


Pretty Girl

by Quiiet



Category: Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Gen, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:20:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27555979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quiiet/pseuds/Quiiet
Summary: It's been years since Veronica's even thought about what happened in her teenage years. She's left that part of her behind to focus on the greater things in life: like her daughter.But when her daughter starts talking to a new 'friend' that Veronica can't see, she starts to wonder if she actually left it all behind her or if it's coming back to haunt her.
Relationships: Heather Chandler & Veronica Sawyer
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	Pretty Girl

The giggling heard from the room down the hall wasn't uncommon or unwelcome.

Veronica leaned backwards from the hot stove to look down the hall and smile at the sound for a moment before returning to making dinner. She stirred the noodles and made sure to carefully coat them in the spaghetti sauce before reaching for the oregano. The fond smile on her lips grew and her heart warmed as she realized that, much like her own mother, she was getting to make spaghetti -- _lots of oregano!_ \-- for her own daughter now. 

"Laura! I'm almost done with dinner! You read to eat?" Veronica called down the hall, craning again to watch for her daughter. The giggling had quieted down and she was instead chatting away, not the usual babble she spoke when playing with her dolls, but instead like she was having a conversation with someone. Curious and also unwilling to wait any longer to dig in, Veronica turned the burner off and padded down the hallway as quietly as possible.

Laura's animated voice could be heard clearer now that she stood just outside the door. "I like the swing outside! I got it for my birthday from Grandpa! When's your birthday?" Veronica smiled again and peaked her head in, opening her mouth to pull her daughter away from her game of pretend with her toys but freezing instantly.

Standing with her back to the door in her little plastic red chair, Laura stared at the corner of the ceiling with an intensity never before seen. She clasped her hands in front of her and did a little happy wiggle, "My favorite color is blue! Like Mommy's! You should come down and play!" She paused for a moment before asking seriously, "What did you say? Do you want me to come up there with you?"

Veronica nearly tripped over her own feet as she dashed into the room to scoop her daughter from under her arms and carry her out of the room, all the while chanting _'Nope-nope-nope-nope-nope-nope'_.

Laura made a noise of discomfort at the awkward hold and kicked her little legs. "Mommy!" She groaned. Veronica heaved a sigh as she placed the four year old in her booster seat at the dining room table, taking to shake off the chills on her arms and the weighted pit in her stomach. As she reached for the bowls she realized her hands were shaking a little too hard for glassware and she closed the cabinet to use the paper ones on the counter top. Making sure to blow over the spaghetti with exaggeration so Laura saw and didn't complain, Veronica sat beside the little girl and gave her her bowl.

She picked at it with her fingers without a care in the world, already seeming to forget the fact that she was just holding a conversation with the ceiling.

"Sweetie?" Veronica's voice cracked and she cleared her throat before continuing, "Who were you talking to?"

"Pretty Girl." Laura answered simply, still more concerned with her food.

"Who's Pretty Girl?"

"My friend."

"Is she your imaginary friend?"

"She's my friend." Laura repeated.

Veronica couldn't help her eyes wandering back down the hallway, looking for some kind of terrifying monster to be standing in the doorway to her daughter's room. "And she was on the ceiling?" She asked slowly while forcing her gaze back to her daughter's spaghetti sauce covered face.

"Uh-huh. Sometimes she isn't." Laura stuffed more noodles in her mouth and spoke around them, "Sometimes we play pretend. Sometimes she tells me stories. Funny ones! She's really silly, Mommy! We go on ad...adben...uhm..."

"Adventures?" Veronica provided. Laura nodded vigorously. Breathing a little easier and leaning back in her chair, Veronica ruffled her daughter's brown hair and said with a chuckle, "Well, maybe your next adventure you guys can play with your dolls or outside. Let's not talk to the ceiling anymore, okay? You give mommy heart palpitations."

Frowning and cocking her head to the side, Laura asked, "What does that mean?"

Trying to hide her growing grin, Veronica placed a hand to her forehead and dramatically said, "It means I'm dying, Laura! You'll have to be an orphan from now on and make spaghetti for yourself! I can't...go on...I'm... _dead_." She swayed back and forth as she spoke, ending it by dropping her face into her own bowl of spaghetti. 

Laura erupted into laughter and said, "You're silly, Mommy!" Veronica lifted her head and laugh along with her, their faces adorned with matching spaghetti sauce. She could forget about whatever creepy thing her daughter did while they were laughing, and even after it stopped she had herself convinced that it was just an overreaction to a normal thing for a kid to do. Hell, even she had an imaginary friend growing up. Perfectly normal.

That night Laura got to have a 'sleepover' in Mommy's room.

"Nooooooo!" Laura fought against Veronica's hand as they stepped out of the dressing room. "But I want the _pink_ dress!"

Veronica cringed at her daughter's shrill cries but quickly put on her 'fuck-off' face to the people trying to glare in their direction. "Sweetie, they don't have any in your size." She said soothingly, "The yellow dress is cute, why don't you like it?"

"I want pink!"

Sighing and knowing this was a lose-lose situation, Veronica knelt down and wiped Laura's tear-streaked face. "I thought you liked yellow? What's with the obsession with pink?"

Laura hiccupped and said with a frustrated tone, "I want a pink dress like Pretty Girl's!"

Veronica fought to keep her groan in her mouth. Her daughter's imaginary friend had become a constant part of their day to day ever since the night Veronica first learned of her. It seemed like every time she'd ask what Laura was doing the response was 'playing with my friend!'. The topic had even been brought up at her last doctor's visit to get her flu shot, Veronica still thinking about the ceiling incident and unable to shake an eerie worry. The physician insisted the normalcy of children making up friends and told Veronica that it was just a phase that would pass soon, and God almighty did she hope it would.

"Well, why don't we get the yellow dress now and we can get a pink dress later when they have more?"

"Noooooooooo!"

This 'friend' was going to be the death of her, Veronica was sure of it.

She was standing in the living room talking to Martha on the phone when she heard a slow _CRA-A-A-ACK_ and then a deafening _BOOM_ of something heavy hitting the earth. It hit hard enough to shake the whole house and be heard over the phone as Martha rapidly called Veronica's name. Her voice was fading away as Veronica turned to the glass doors that lead to the backyard and tunnel visioned on the thick tree branch laying in the yard, the rope swing crushed and broken beneath it, and a little pink shoe poking out from between the leaves. 

Veronica was out the door in record time, stepped through the mess to reach for the shoe. Her heart stopped and her stomach dropped as she realized that it was just the shoe and nothing else.

"Mommy?" 

Her head whipped around and she let out a hoarse sob at the sight of Laura sitting on the grass only a few feet away from death with only one shoe on. Veronica dropped to her side and held her close, pressing relieved kisses to her face and head and whispering thanks to whatever God was listening.

"It's okay, Mommy." Laura said, strangely calm about the whole thing.

"Honey, what happened?" She asked between snotty sniffs.

Laura looked up at the tree and then to the branch and shrugged. "I dunno. I was playing on the swing and then Pretty Girl picked me up and put me here."

Too emotionally exhausted to care, Veronica tucked Laura's head under her chin and sighed out, "Thank God for Pretty Girl."

Veronica had noticed her daughter trying to sneak into her bedroom but feigned ignorance as she stared at the newspaper without reading it. The four year old had the stealth of an elephant with a bass drum as she crept from her own room across the hall into the 'forbidden wasteland' as Veronica called it. She decided to give it a few minutes before going to see what she was up to, going back to reading the news but keeping an ear out for any suspicious noises.

She didn't have to wait long as something crashed against tile flooring. That meant she had to be in the bathroom, and if Veronica had learned anything from the infamous 'socks-meet-toilet' incident there was troubling brewing. Stepping carefully inside her room, Veronica watched her daughter pull open the drawers to her bathroom counter, a determined look on her face. She rustled through the cabinet doors with the grace of a rabid raccoon in a garbage can, letting out a triumphant 'ah-ha!' as she found what she was looking for.

The make-up bag wasn't utilized often, but the last thing Veronica wanted to do today was clean up foundation and mascara stains. Let alone have to step foot in another JC Penny to get new make-up and get stuck in conversations she didn't want to have. Veronica held her arms out and made her hands into one finger gun as she walked into the bathroom to press her fingertips against her daughter's back. "Freeze, hooligan!" Laura did as she was told and turned to look at her mother with wide eyes. "You're under arrest! For entering the forbidden wasteland and other war crimes, I hereby sentence you to five minutes in the time-out chair!"

"Nooooooo!" Laura pouted, turning fully to bounce a little and hold her mother's hands, "I'm sorry! No time out! Please, Mommy."

"Hmm, I can be bribed. But only with smooches from a sweet little girl."

Laura's frown turned into a smile and she giggled while rising to stand on her toes, lips puckered. Veronica knelt down to receive the kiss on the cheek and leaned in to return it only to blow raspberries on the little girl's neck. She laughed at it and tried desperately to get away for a moment before giving up and laughing until her face got red. When she started to calm down, Veronica picked up the fallen bag. "Alright, war criminal, why did you want my make-up so badly?"

"Because Pretty Girl wears it! And I wanna wear it too!"

"Well, maybe if you ask nicely instead of trying to 'borrow' my stuff, Mommy can put a little bit of make-up on you."

Laura giggled again and said, "Pretty Girl said you're bad at make-up."

Gasping and placing a hand to her chest, Veronica looked at her daughter and cried, "She did? Oh no whatever will I do now! Me? Bad with make-up, oh the horror!" They laughed again and she pulled Laura into a hug, adding with a happy sigh, "Maybe Pretty Girl can give us both makeovers sometime."

"But she said she already gave you one!"

"Well it must have been in my sleep because I remember no such encounter. She owes me another one."

Laura just giggled again and said while returning the hug, "You're silly, Mommy."

Veronica watched in shock and horror as Laura pulled a fourth blue popsicle from the freezer. Well, fourth if the three sticks at her feet were related to the situation. Dropping her purse to the floor with a loud thud, Laura's head whipped around at the noise and she stopped all movement with the popsicle still in her mouth. "Laura Ann Sawyer, just what do you think you're doing?" Veronica asked with her best 'mom-voice', putting her hands on her hips for good measure.

One long trip to the time out chair and a stern talking to about too much sugar and bellyaches later, Veronica sat the little girl down to hear whatever hairbrained reasoning she had for eating so many popsicles.

Laura wouldn't look at her mother's face and instead looked at the floor as she swung her legs back and forth. "I just wanted to look like Pretty Girl." She mumbled.

"Honey, just because Pretty Girl eats popsicles all day doesn't mean you can to."

With the shake of a head and a deeper frown, the little girl looked up at her mother and said, "But I want my mouth to be blue like Pretty Girl's."

The chills and sense of dread from the first mention of Pretty Girl came rushing back to her all at once and Veronica didn't notice her grip on her daughter's hands tightening until Laura whined. "She what?" Veronica asked breathlessly, her mind racing and old memories suddenly coming back to her -- things she thought she had repressed. There was no way. It had to be some really weird coincidence. And yet...

"Laura, what does Pretty Girl look like?"

"She has pretty blonde hair and wears a pretty pink dress with pink shoes!" Laura happily babbled, "Her mouth is blue but how it turned blue is a secret! She's funny and tells me I look cute in my nice outfits! She's nice and plays with me and she made sure the swing didn't hurt me when it fell!"

Veronica swallowed the lump in her throat and softly asked, "Laura, h-has Pretty Girl ever told you her name? Like a different one? And...does she have a red scrunchie in her hair?"

Laura mimed zipping her lips shut and giggled, "She said that's a secret! And she does! Mommy, do you talk to Pretty Girl too?"

It felt like the floor had fallen out from under Veronica in that moment.

She didn't think there was a parenting book or class in the world that could help her now.

_'Hey so quick question -- I think my daughter has been talking to the ghost of the girl I murdered over ten years ago, common stuff I know, but how would you navigate through that?'_

But surely not. Again, this all had to be a coincidence. It was only logical. True, Veronica had thought she had seen things up until she graduated high school. True, she had nightmares about all of the murders and could still see them all clearly. But that all came to an end once Laura came into her life; she hadn't thought about what happened in her teenage years in forever.

And yet...

"Th-the dress she wears, is it an actual dress or is it more like Mommy's bathrobe?"

"Mmmmm, I dunno. It looks fancy! She said it's nice to sleep in!"

Trying hard not to panic, Veronica stood up and walked to the bookshelf looking for the one thing she never touched on it. The yearbook was dusty and grimy from years of just sitting in boxes or on shelves. Just as she was about to turn around and show it to her daughter, something in her seemed to freeze and she stood still. 

There would be too many questions that she'd have to answer if she showed Laura the yearbook, too many hard to talk about things that she just couldn't understand just yet. Veronica steeled herself and pushed the yearbook back onto the shelf while letting out a long exhale. Imaginary friend or ghost, but a kindred spirit with her daughter nevertheless.

They didn't talk about 'Pretty Girl' for the rest of the night. It wasn't until Veronica was tucking Laura into bed that the little girl spoke with a sleep-thick voice.

"Pretty Girl keeps the Bad Man away."

"Bad Man?" Veronica narrowed her brows. This was new. "Who's the Bad Man?"

Laura's eyes drifted over to her window with the curtains drawn shut and said, "He comes through my window sometimes. Or he stands in the door. Pretty Girl said he's a very bad man but that she scares him away when he tries to come in."

The ice in her spine might as well take up residency there at this point. "Is the Bad Man wearing a long black coat?"

"Yeah."

Veronica nodded slowly with a tight smile, "I see him too sometimes." She admitted with a tremble in her voice.

Laura reached out to pat at her mother's hand in a reassuring manner. "I'll tell Pretty Girl to scare him out of your room too." She said with a yawn.

"Thanks kiddo. Good night, I love you."

She made sure the curtains were tightly closed before closing the door to her daughter's room. Veronica rubbed her forehead and made her way into the kitchen to rummage through the highest cabinets blindly until her fingers found the familiar glass. The gin was poured a little too generously given that it was a work night, but goddamn if she didn't need it right now. Veronica slumped into a chair at the dining room table and took a long sip of her drink, resting one elbow on the table and her head in her hand. 

After a few more sips, enough to warm her chest and give her a little bit of courage, Veronica lifted her head and said aloud to the empty room, "Look. I-I don't know why you're here or still hanging around but...fuck, she thinks you're her friend now and I don't know how to tell her who you really are and I just..." She chuckled humorlessly and let a few frustrated tears leak from her eyes, "I don't know." 

Standing now and rubbing her hands up and down her arms to try and bring more comfort to herself, Veronica settled for wrapping her arms tightly around herself as she meandered into the living room. She watched every corner as if something would appear there, the alcohol and emotional exhaustion quickly catching up to her. Wetting her lips and trying not to sound as scared as she felt, she continued. 

"I'm sorry. I'll never be sorry enough. I'm sure you know by now that I didn't mean for it to happen. Especially if...if he's hanging around too. But, if you're keeping him away from her...then I guess don't mind you being here. As long as you don't do anything to hurt her because I swear to whatever the hell you want me to swear to that I will find a way to tear you apart if you do _anything_ to Laura. Okay? Fuck with me, I don't care -- I definitely deserve it! But just...keep being good to her. I know you can. You saved her from that branch, after all. You have to care about her too." Veronica stopped the center of the room and ended her speech by saying, "Just...I know it's more your speed to play coy and hard to get but could you please just let me know that I'm not standing here talking to nothing like a total pillowcase? You come out and talk to Laura all the time, so come on Heather, come out and talk to me for once."

Everything was still and quiet as Veronica waited with bated breath. About to come to terms with her own deep dive into insanity, Veronica went rigid as the radio on the dining room table turned on by itself. She pivoted on her feet slowly, bracing to see something awful behind her, but there was nothing there. The radio was nothing but static, seeming to be switching between different channels and frequencies at a fast pace before stopping and retuning itself as a song began to play.

Veronica couldn't help her smile as she realized it was _'You've Got A Friend'_ by Big Fun. The smile turned into a tearful laugh and Veronica made her way to the table to sit down by the radio and let grateful tears flow. As the song ended and faded back into static, Veronica wiped her nose and mentioned, "You know, I'm still sorry for puking on your shoes at the Remington party."

The radio began shuffling through channels again and Veronica jumped as a gravelly voice came out of it.

"Pillow. Case."

Recovering from her shock and grinning widely, Veronica reach up to flick the radio off.

"Yeah, I guess I still am. Good night, Heather."

Years later, 'Pretty Girl' became Laura's favorite spooky story to tell to her friends when they had sleepovers. The little girl -- well not little anymore, but still in her mother's eyes -- would tell tall tales about her adventures with her ghostly friend and all the skin-crawling things that happened. Her friends would hide behind their pillows and blankets and insist she was lying or exaggerating, turning to Veronica to see if she would correct her daughter. But, as she had done all those years ago, Veronica let her daughter go and listened to what she said almost fondly. Every now and again she would chime in with her pieces of the story, how she'd find Laura trying on clothes and showing them off to no one or seeming to become a croquet pro on her first game. Everyone seemed a little sad as Laura explained that after a few years her invisible friend said good-bye for the last time and never appeared to her again.

One of her friends seemed almost enamored with the stories and spoke up once Laura had finished. "She sounds like your guardian angel, Laura!"

Veronica couldn't help but choke up at the thought and watched the grin on her daughter's face grow.

"Yeah, she kinda was."

**Author's Note:**

> hallo!!! so it wasn't my intention to be gone for so long, but i am here again! and i've decided it's been far too long since i've shown my appreciation to heathers, so i'm here now! i've got a multi-chapter fic in the works right now too, so if you liked this (or just like chansaw in general) keep an eye out for it! thank you so much for reading!!! 
> 
> (also, the bit about Laura standing in a chair talking to the ceiling? yeah, true story. one of my siblings did that when they were little. scared the shite outta our mam LOL)


End file.
